1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to cutting apparatus and particularly to cutting apparatus to cut a workpiece such as a semiconductor wafer along streets.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a semiconductor device manufacturing process, streets (planned dividing lines) are formed on a surface of a semiconductor wafer in a lattice manner and circuits such as ICs and LSIs are formed in regions partitioned by the streets. The semiconductor wafer is cut along the streets by cutting apparatus to be divided into the individual semiconductor chips. As dividing apparatus to divide the semiconductor wafer in this manner, generally cutting apparatus as dicing apparatus is used. This cutting apparatus includes a chuck table to hold a workpiece and a cutting unit having a cutting blade to cut the workpiece held by the chuck table. By carrying out relative cutting feed of the chuck table with rotation of the cutting blade, the semiconductor wafer is cut.
In association with recent increase in the diameter of the workpiece, cutting apparatus provided with four-axis spindles has been proposed to enhance the productivity (refer to Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 11-274109). In the cutting apparatus described in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 11-274109, four spindles each having the axial core along the Y-axis direction are juxtaposed in the X-axis direction at predetermined intervals.